Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Reliable Are University Rankings?

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 90 posts

Re: How Reliable Are University Rankings?

#11

Post by Infinitesimus »

spideymans wrote: post #4

Why is there such a fixation on university rankings in the United States? Postsecondary rankings don't seem to matter as much in other Western countries.

A mix of trying to get a sense of educational quality and prestige.

In some specific programs, you'd want to aim for the schools known to have the more robust curriculum but outside of that, it's mostly ego/prestige. "I got to a top N school, I went to harvard", etc.

That badge signals _something_ to your peers, parents, and future employers. Think of all those companies that explicitly filter for "target schools". It works pretty well too, you'll get a call-back to an interview because you have an Ivy on your resume even if you barely passed your classes.

Re: How Reliable Are University Rankings?

#12

Post by dudul »

spideymans wrote: post #4

Why is there such a fixation on university rankings in the United States? Postsecondary rankings don't seem to matter as much in other Western countries.

Education is a market. To make money, universities need to attract customers. And they do that by being highly ranked.

And I disagree with your statement. Many other western countries have their "ivy league" equivalent. Not all schools are equal in the rest of the world either. But I do however agree that the "marketing" aspect is definitely more pronounced in the US.

Re: How Reliable Are University Rankings?

#13

Post by musicale »

qzw wrote: post #9

From the abstract: *>we both formally and experimentally show in multiple ways that this ranking scheme is not reliable and cannot be trusted as authoritative because it is too sensitive to weight changes and can easily be gamed. That's a feature, not a bug, as far as USNWR (the magazine doing the ranking) is concerned. A more reliable ranking would be more stable and therefore less interesting for the universities.…

> Standford

      ^   ;-)
Not to be confused with Stamford

https://stamford.uconn.edu/

Re: How Reliable Are University Rankings?

#14

Post by HenryKissinger »

qzw wrote: post #9

From the abstract: *>we both formally and experimentally show in multiple ways that this ranking scheme is not reliable and cannot be trusted as authoritative because it is too sensitive to weight changes and can easily be gamed. That's a feature, not a bug, as far as USNWR (the magazine doing the ranking) is concerned. A more reliable ranking would be more stable and therefore less interesting for the universities.…

> The fact that it's easily game-able also makes it more attractive to universities because they can do something proactive if they're dissatisfied with their ranking

Are you saying that there is nothing lower ranked universities could do to improve their ranking in a better, more objective ranking of universities? Because it smacks of elitism.

Re: How Reliable Are University Rankings?

#16

Post by alexpetralia »

finolex1 wrote: post #7

Gaming of rankings aside, the ratings organizations themselves offer various 'services' to colleges looking for a reputation boost. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/29/methodology-q... For instance, QS sells a 'star-ranking' system for schools. Coincidentally the schools who paid for a '5-star' ranking, such as the Unviersity of Bristol or the Universiti Malaya are also placed higher on the actual QS ranki…

Related to expenses..

"And there are several perverse incentives in the marketplace that make it hard for colleges to cut costs. The most basic one is that the U.S. News algorithm rewards them for spending a lot of money: Higher faculty salaries and more spending on student services lead directly to better rankings. If you reduce your expenses, your ranking will fall, which means that next year your applicant pool will probably shrink."

You'd be surprised at the burgeoning expenses of universities, and often meager profitability, despite record-high tuition rates. It seems, often like startups, a burn rate signals potential growth!

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/10/magazine/coll...

Re: How Reliable Are University Rankings?

#17

Post by neilv »

augustt wrote: post #10
neilv wrote: post #3

https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeast... > Freeland swept into Northeastern with a brand-new mantra: recalibrate the school to climb up the ranks. “There’s no question that the system invites gaming,” Freeland tells me. “We made a systematic effort to influence [the outcome].” He directed university researchers to break the U.S. News code and replicate its formulas.

Yeah this kind of gaming is probably widespread. UChicago is known for "artificially" driving down their acceptance rate with lots of decision rounds and marketing. Cornell isn't releasing their numbers at all this year - I'd guess because they don't like them.

I've heard many allegations about established universities gaming their ranking by, e.g., soliciting applications widely -- not so much to have a larger and more diverse pool from which to choose -- but to maintain/lower their acceptance rate metric.

Two things I like about the Northeastern story are that the official demonstrated even more ambitious gaming, and it was publicized.

No criticism of Northeastern; they have many great people, doing great work. And I've heard many faculty objected to the rankings-climbing emphasis as it was happening.

Re: How Reliable Are University Rankings?

#18

Post by Trombone12 »

finolex1 wrote: post #7

Gaming of rankings aside, the ratings organizations themselves offer various 'services' to colleges looking for a reputation boost. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/05/29/methodology-q... For instance, QS sells a 'star-ranking' system for schools. Coincidentally the schools who paid for a '5-star' ranking, such as the Unviersity of Bristol or the Universiti Malaya are also placed higher on the actual QS ranki…

Isn't the point of an audit is that it tells you what problems to fix? It would be concerning if this audit happens only shortly before, or even after, the main ranking happens.

But if the increased ranking is done based on data from, say a half a year later, then that just seems like a normal audit effect? That it might just make the client better at gaming the rules is true for a normal audit too.

Re: How Reliable Are University Rankings?

#19

Post by plorkyeran »

spideymans wrote: post #4

Why is there such a fixation on university rankings in the United States? Postsecondary rankings don't seem to matter as much in other Western countries.

Is there actually a big fixation on university rankings? I had no idea what my school's ranking was (apparently it's now #40) and I'm not sure I've ever had conversation where university rankings came up outside of specifically talking about where a high school student is thinking about applying. Even then it's not like it's common for people to pick which school to go to out of the ones that accepted them based solely on rankings.

People who care about Ivies and the such don't care because the Ivies have a high ranking. Someone who went to Harvard who wants to use that fact to their advantage isn't going to say that they went to a "top 3" school.

Post reply on HN